Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/robert-mccormick

Birth Place

Runham, Kent, England, UK

Biography

sketcher, amateur photographer(?), natural historian and naval surgeon, was born in Runham near Great Yarmouth, Kent, on 22 July 1800. He followed in the professional footsteps of his father, Robert McCormick senior, a surgeon in the Royal Navy, studying medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospitals, London, and receiving his diploma in 1822. Joining the navy as an assistant surgeon in 1823, McCormick’s first appointment was to the West Indies, but he seems to have had little liking for life in the tropics and invalided himself out of service in 1825. Later he volunteered for service with the Arctic explorer William Edward Parry, and was promoted surgeon on 27 November 1827. Two subsequent attempts by the navy to send him to the West Indies (1829 and 1833) proved no more successful than the first: on both occasions he invalided himself out almost immediately. In July 1831 he was appointed surgeon to the Beagle under Robert FitzRoy , but again was not happy. FitzRoy called him 'an empty Cox-comb and I an egregious Ass in not finding him out at an earlier period’. McCormick left the expedition in April 1832. His post as surgeon was taken by Benjamin Bynoe; his post as naturalist by the previously unpaid Charles Darwin. McCormick then spent several years on half-pay, fostering, as the Dictionary of National Biographies [ DNB ] puts it, his interests in geology and natural history in the English and Welsh countryside. According to A.G.E. Jones, both McCormick’s autobiography and Laughton’s DNB article (the latter based almost entirely on the former) exaggerated McCormick’s importance. McCormick suggested that it was as much his natural history skills as his medical capacities which won him his desired appointment to James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition in 1839 but Jones says it was simply a case of 'loyalty to a former colleague’. Nevertheless, Ross notified the Admiralty in May that he did not consider 'the appointment of a specialist naturalist at all necessary, as the surgeon of the Erebus [McCormick] had devoted his time and attention for many years past both to the study of zoology and geology, and specially qualifying himself for the position’. But it was the young Joseph Dalton Hooker who, although entered in the ship’s manifest as assistant surgeon, acted as the expedition’s biologist. Hooker wrote to his father: 'McCormick has collected nothing but geological specimens, and pays no attention to the sea animals brought up in the towing nets and they are therefore brought to me at once … McCormick and I are exceedingly good friends, and no jealousy exists between us regarding my taking most of his department’. At a meeting of the Royal Society in London on 2 July 1839 McCormick was given an introduction to the pioneer photographer Fox Talbot. 'On the following day’, McCormick recalled, 'I called on Mr. Talbot at no. 31, Sackville Street, and had about an hour’s conversation with him respecting his new process, of which he presented me with a specimen, and an invitation to spend a day or two with him at his country house, where he promised to give me a practical lesson in the whole process’. Both McCormick and Hooker were subsequently instructed in Talbot’s 'photogenic drawing’ and McCormick later wrote to Talbot acknowledging the 'incalculable value’ of the process in 'delineating the various objects of Natural History’. Although it is intriguing to imagine McCormick whiling away the long Antarctic summer days in the practice of primitive photography there is, unfortunately, no evidence that any photographs were taken during the course of this expedition. The ships of Ross’s expedition, the Erebus and Terror , left England in September 1839 and returned in September 1843. During this time they made three visits to Hobart Town during the southern winters. On the first visit in 1840 McCormick met Thomas Gregson of Risdon, 'who subsequently became one of my most valued friends’, and made several pencil sketches of Risdon. Two were reproduced ('transferred to the stone under my own supervision’) in McCormick’s Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas . One is a view of Mount Wellington and River Derwent, Tasmania, Sketched from Risdon . The other, Risdon, Tasmania, the Residence of T. Gregson, Esq. , is a picturesque view, best described in McCormick’s own words: '[Risdon is] most picturesquely situated on a rising knoll, embosomed in trees, and perfectly isolated, approached by a winding road skirting the creek … for most part of the way having a thickly-wooded hill on the right’. These are McCormick’s only published drawings of Tasmanian subjects, although he sketched regularly. None of his sketches were used in Ross’s official publication of the expedition and on 9 August 1847 McCormick collected from the Admiralty his 'private journals and sketches … which had only just arrived from the “Ship Hotel”, where they had been lying ever since the return of the expedition’. McCormick was not happy in his subsequent career. His proposal to lead a search party for Sir John Franklin and the Erebus crew was refused by the Admiralty but he nevertheless made a partial search in a small boat during his service as surgeon in the North Star in 1852. He was appointed deputy-inspector of hospitals on 20 May 1859, retiring in July 1865. He published his Voyages of Discovery (including his autobiography) at his own expense in 1884. The fulsome tone of this puff book has been more than countered by Jones’s recent article: 'Only in the Services would he have been a success, and in the Navy his advancement came through longevity and the rule of seniority. Perhaps it might have been kinder if in his early years somebody had told him of his limited ability’. McCormick died at Ridgeway Place, Wimbledon, on 28 October 1890. Writers: Callaway, Anita Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 22 July 1800

Summary

McCormick is neither remembered for his excellence in the navy nor blessed with a magnificent portfolio that might redeem his deficiencies in this area. Although it is recorded that he took lessons in 'photogenic drawing' and sketched regularly, especially while visiting Tasmania in the early 1840s, not more than a couple of drawings survive to confirm the written history. He had several posts as

Gender

Male

Died

28 October 1890

Age at death

90